People will not pay for something they can get for free, especially if the lack of a price tag is condoned. For heaven's sake, more people steal their music now (mp3s) than pay for it! I think it is totally naive to think people will pay.

personally I know many people who pirate music then pay for the album later.

It's a pretty common thing among most of my friends who are into music, yes some people won't pay for it, but there definitely are people who are willing to contribute money to the bands they support, even if it's just buying T-shirts or other merch.

And we could go into whether or not this is ethical(which clearly is where this is headed), but that doesn't change the fact that artists need to adjust to this, not ignore it.